st: RE: RE: open source

In this connection, I once came across a user
who had written some Stata ados and was selling
copies of them. I regret that I have never met this
person or otherwise found out how many purchasers
there were. As far as I can see, there could be no
real objection to this if it was all original work,
but it didn't ever catch on as a way of interacting
with other users.
Nick
n.j.cox@durham.ac.uk
Nick Cox
> Well, I doubt that StataCorp would want
> to make claims that just aren't true,
> or that could be seen as seriously misleading.
>
> The executable, and the underlying
> C code, of Stata are emphatically not open
> source, and they are likely to remain
> proprietary for the foreseeable future,
> and the unforeseeable future too.
>
> It is of course correct that user-written
> ado files are in a fairly strong sense
> open source, although fairly useless
> without the executable. Also, StataCorp-written ado
> files are in a very weak sense also open source,
> but only because they are visible.
>
> If someone were to write a new open source
> executable that ran Stata programs, then there would
> be an interesting situation! I know this
> was done once in the case of S-Plus and R,
> but my own guess is that this is unlikely
> to be repeated.
>
> R is a wonderful thing, no doubt about
> it, but the differences are every bit as
> important as the similarities.
>
David Airey
> > I was at a talk given by a Stata user the other week, and he
> > mentioned
> > the open source stance of Stata to an audience member, since that
> > audience member is the new chair of biostatistics, and he's
> an ardent
> > fan of R. I'm not sure the audience member blinked at all.
> >
> > R gets a lot of attention from potential users by being on the open
> > source bandwagon. Why does the Stata Web site not include
> > this phrase,
> > "open source", prominently, or make the comparison with
> what Stata is
> > and is not in terms of open source more explicit? I did not do an
> > exhaustive search. In many ways, much of Stata is open source, or
> > provides the same utility/flexibility.
> >
> > For the record, I try to learn both Stata and R. I don't know other
> > packages, and I barely have enough time for a little more than a
> > superficial grasp of either.
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